ST. LOUIS (KMOX) -- Guten tag! Time to brush up on your German? St. Louis has landed a new nonstop flight to Frankfurt, Germany on Lufthansa. Tickets go on sale today.
The new route brings continental European service back to St. Louis for the first time since 2001, when TWA flew to Paris.
"The first thing I hear from the business community is, 'oh my gosh, this is a really big deal,'" says Greater St. Louis, Inc. CEO Jason Hall.
"On some of our deals, where we're competing against cities across the globe and across this country, one of the factors that has eliminated us is not having nonstop service to Europe," Hall says. "So this is only going to make us more competitive."
Lufthansa plans to launch the nonstop flight to Frankfurt in June 2022. The route will be three-times a week on an Airbus A330 plane with business, premium, and economy cabins.
An official announcement is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the offices of Greater St. Louis, Inc.
Hall tells KMOX they first started meeting with Lufthansa early in the summer; and STL had to sweeten the pot.
"We did work with a few of our companies here locally to build an appropriate, performance-based incentive to help serve as a catalyst to get this flight going," Hall says, " and then obviously it is going to be up to us as a metro to prove what we've said -- that we can make this flight successful."
Companies pitching in included Nestle Purina, Emerson, and Centene.
Why Germany? Hall says it was a "strong business case" with the likes of Bayer Crop Science, Millipore Sigma, seed maker KWS, and others.
Lambert-St. Louis boasted flights to multiple European destinations including London-Gatwick, Paris, and even Frankfurt during its period as the primary hub for Trans World Airlines. Toward the end, in 1999, TWA was even persuing a route between St. Louis and Narita, Japan that never materialized.
American Airlines ended the last St. Louis-London route in 2003.
Then, in May 2018, discount carrier WOW Air launched nonstop flights from Lambert to Iceland before ending the service months later.
Scheduled to take part in Tuesday's news conference are St. Louis City Mayor Tishuara Jones, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page, Enterprise Holdings Executive Chairman Andy Taylor, and Greater St. Louis CEO Jason Hall.
Lufthansa is the largest airline in Germany and Frankfurt is the country's busiest airport. Lufthansa is a member of Star Alliance, which also includes U.S. carrier United.
Lufthansa will connect St. Louis fliers to more than 155 global destinations from Frankfurt.
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